New Orleans, LA -- Power company, Entergy New Orleans, and SMG, the company that manages the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, issued a joint statement regarding the partial power loss during the Super Bowl in New Orleans via their twitter page @EntergyNOLA:

"Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl in the Superdome, a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue.

Backup generators kicked in immediately as designed. Entergy and SMG subsequently coordinated start up procedures, ensuring that full power was safely restored to the Superdome.

The fault-sensing equipment activated where the Superdome equipment intersects with Entergy's feed into the facility. There were no additional issues detected.
Entergy and SMG will continue to investigate the root cause of the abnormality."